Engaging women in research

TR-ANZGOG is an ANZGOG research initiative to add value to important clinical trials in women with gynaecological cancers by supporting the collection and use of biospecimens for further research. This will help to find biomarkers that are associated with good response to trial drugs, and, if response is not as good as expected, to find out why.

TR-ANZGOG is managing the translational component of the recently commenced SOLACE2 trial. This Phase 2 national clinical trial is investigating whether immunological priming could improve the subsequent response to immunotherapy in women with the most common type of ovarian cancer (high-grade serous) at the first sign of relapse. The SOLACE2 Study Chair, clinician scientist Professor Clare Scott, Head of the Ovarian Cancer Laboratory at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and ANZGOG Board member, considers it a “really important advance to be able to offer this trial to patients” as these asymptomatic women would otherwise only be observed until their disease progresses. In addition to studying immune therapy, every woman on this trial receives treatment with a PARP inhibitor, an exciting new treatment for ovarian cancer.